NHS pension

[Darkestseasonofall]

I'm ashamed to admit but I haven't really paid much mind to my pension.
I'm about 10 years in, but a lot of that has been part time / mat leave.
I'm on a 22.5 hour contract now, but I'm nudging 40 and thinking I should increase my contributions. Has anyone done this, can you overpay?
I'm on the newer, less favourable career average plan, is it still worth increasing my subs?
Any help appreciated, I've pretty much been an ostrich about it all so far.

I looked into this a few years ago just after the career average pension came in, so my NHS knowledge may be out of date. I found you could no longer pay more into the NHS scheme but they had set up an affiliation with a different company - Standard life maybe? - which you could pay into.

However you would only be able to access that extra pension money when you retired from the NHS, which is now state pension age. I wanted to give myself options to retire early if I wanted.

So I set up a completely separate pension called a SIPP (self invested personal pension). I have complete control over that. I can pay into it regularly or not at all, with small amounts or big lump sums. I choose how it’s invested (I followed lots of online advice which says keep it very simple and go for low cost tracker funds).

Withdrawing is super flexible too. You can take it out whenever you want once you reach the age of 55, likely to go up to 57 soon. You can take it out in chunks or as an income.

For me it complements the NHS scheme perfectly.

@bobbingpuffins thank you so much for your really helpful reply.

I'm thinking perhaps I'll spend a few years overpaying my mortgage instead by £100 or so and see if I can chop a few years off that way instead.

I was after the flexibility of releasing a lump sum early to perhaps help dc through uni / house deposit etc, if any additional contributions through the sister company are tied to the state pension age that's not useful, hopefully dc won't need the help so much then.

Thanks again

Glad that helped!